Optomitry

I sit calmly, missing essential parts. I had said that I'd like to be a bat, but I just wanted to fly, not to be blind as I am now, in a too-straight-back high chair, feet hanging off the floor by inches, without glasses, without contacts. Vision further impaired by clumps of still damp midnight as I clutch my fuzzy green rectangle with my soft-edged pink claws, tempted to open to white pages and words. Remembering I recoil from disappointment still fearing the change of the page, the smudgy gray and black horizontal lines I know they wait inside, words very absent. I remember the old days in classrooms, asked to read, demanded, hopelessly I blurred the world further with my tears, a long unanswered prayer to understand how to find letters and words in horizontal smudges. I will not open the book, not until they give me back my eyes.